Trauma care in Oman: A call for action.

Many Arab countries have undergone the epidemiologic transition of diseases with increasing economic development and a proportionately decreasing prevalence of communicable diseases. With this transition, injuries have emerged as a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in addition to diseases of affluence. Injuries are the number one cause of years of life lost and disability-adjusted life-years in the Sultanate of Oman. The burden of injuries, which affects mostly young Omani males, has a unique geographic distribution that is in contrast to the trauma care capabilities of the country. The concentration of health care resources in the northern part of the country makes it difficult for the majority of Omanis who live elsewhere to access high-quality and time-sensitive care. A broader multisectorial national injury prevention strategy should be evidence based and must strengthen human resources, service delivery, and information systems to improve care of the injured and loss of life. This paper provides a unique overview of the Omani health system with the goal of examining its trauma care capabilities and injury control policies.

Health Systems Research Consortia and the Promotion of Health Equity in Low and Middle-Income Countries.

Health systems research is widely identified as an indispensable means to achieve the goal of health equity between and within countries. Numerous health systems research consortia comprised of institutions from high-income countries and low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are currently undertaking programs of research in LMICs. These partnerships differ from collaborations that carry out single projects in the multiplicity of their goals, scope of their activities, and nature of their management. Recent conceptual work has explored what features might be necessary for health systems research consortia and their research programs to promote health equity. Identified features include selecting research priorities that focus on improving access to high-quality health services and/or financial protection for disadvantaged populations in LMICs and conducting research capacity strengthening that promotes the independent conduct of health systems research in LMICs. Yet, there has been no attempt to investigate whether existing consortia have such characteristics. This paper describes the results of a survey undertaken with health systems research consortia leaders worldwide to assess how consistent current practice is with the proposed ethical guidance. The findings suggest that consortia may be fairly well organised to promote health equity, but have scope for improvement, particularly in terms of achieving inclusive priority-setting.

Descriptive epidemiology of injury cases: findings from a pilot injury surveillance system in Abu Dhabi.

Considering the high burden of injuries, the Health Authority-Abu Dhabi developed a draft electronic and paper-based injury and poisoning notification system (IPNS) to generate better data on the nature and severity of injuries. The pilot testing and evaluation of IPNS was conducted with the specific objectives to (1) identify the characteristics of injury cases, (2) explore potential risk factors, (3) illustrate the nature and type of data, and (4) the working mechanism of data collection. Data were collected from selected hospitals on patient demographics, injury information and clinical assessment. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted. Of 4226 injury cases, nearly three-fourths were male, majority were non-UAE nationals, and the mean age was 21.9. Multivariate findings suggested that compared to UAE nationals, non-UAE nationals were 27% more likely to experience fatal, severe or moderate injuries (p = 0.01). Individuals with health insurance were 31% less likely to suffer a fatal, severe or moderate injury compared to those having no health insurance (p < 0.001). This is the first systematically standardised collection of injury data across three facilities in Abu Dhabi, and provides initial information on characteristics and injury risk factors that will help identify the need for evidence-based intervention for injury prevention and control.

Injuries and violence in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: a review of the health, economic and social burden.

We review current literature and data on the burden of injury and violence in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) of the World Health Organization (WHO), with a special focus on the health, economic and social burden they impose on individuals, families and society. Injury-associated mortality and disability is on the rise in EMR, especially among economically productive adults, young males and vulnerable road users. In particular, road traffic injuries, the leading cause of injuries, account for 27% of the total injury and violence mortality in EMR according to WHO. Violence including suicide, homicide and war-related injury has also been increasing over the past two decades for both females and males. There is need for greater interest and efforts in slowing and ultimately halting the trend through interventions, legislative actions, and research that examine the special needs and challenges in the Region.

Addressing the implementation gap in global road safety: exploring features of an effective response and introducing a 10-country program.

Yearly, more than 1.2 million people are killed by road traffic injuries (RTIs) around the globe, and another 20 to 50 million are injured. The global burden of RTIs is predicted to rise. We explored the need for concerted action for global road safety and propose characteristics of an effective response to the gap in addressing RTIs. We propose that a successful response includes domains such as strong political will, capacity building, use of evidence-based interventions, rigorous evaluation, increased global funding, multisectoral action, and sustainability. We also present a case study of the global Road Safety in 10 Countries project, which is a new, 5-year, multipartner initiative to address the burden of RTIs in 10 low- and middle-income countries.